Runaway (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 4)

“Where?” Jasper prompted.

With a sigh, Molly told him. “But I need to go back there. I can’t lose my lodgings.”

“Why?”

“Well, without somewhere to stay there is no place to take Oliver to when I find him,” she argued.

“He is coming here,” Jasper warned her. “He is an integral part of our investigation now.”

“Investigation?” Molly gulped. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“We work with the War Office,” Jasper assured her. “You are now under official government protection so, I am afraid, your life belongs to us now. Neither you, nor Oliver when we find him, can go anywhere without permission from our boss, Sir Hugo. He is undercover at the moment, so it will be a while before he is free to come and speak with you. If I were you, I would settle in and be prepared to stay for a while because, right now, there is no safest place in London you could be.”

With that, and before she could offer any further protest, Jasper ambled off toward the kitchen in search of his colleagues. He wanted them on guard because Miss Molly Egerton was most definitely someone who would run - again. Then, he was going to find them both a change of clothing before influenza took both their lives.

CHAPTER SIX

“Jesus. How could anybody live like this?” Jasper hissed several hours later when he let himself into the cramped and decrepit room Molly called her lodgings. He stepped into the tiny space and glanced around, only partially aware of Niall following him and slowly closing the door. The narrow room became claustrophobic instantly. The men turned to look at each other in stunned disbelief. There was no furniture inside the tiny space, just a couple of bedraggled blankets in front of the fireplace. Jasper squatted down before them and shook his head in disgust.

“God, Niall. She is lucky she isn’t dead,” Jasper whispered.

“No wonder the boy ran away. I think life on the streets has to be better than this,” Niall murmured.

The room didn’t take long to search. The only chair, a rickety thing with a wobbly leg, was solid wood but so old it looked dangerous. The empty grate of the fireplace clearly hadn’t been used for several years given how damp and mouldy the bare walls within it.

“My horse lives in better conditions than this,” Niall snorted.

They both paused when loud voices downstairs built in volume as one of the lodgers argued with the landlady that the rent wouldn’t be paid until the smashed window had been replaced.

“If she brought her brother back to this he would just run away again. I know I would.” Jasper picked up Molly’s carpet bag inside of which lay several items of feminine clothing. He dug around in it, but there was no coin purse like Molly had said. He wondered if he had misheard her.

Niall set to work looking for it, not least so he could get the Hell out of the mould-riddled dump. It was making his noise twitch and felt so dank he suspected he was going to need a change of clothing to get rid of the pungent odour of decay.

“Its so bloody cold in here,” he grumbled, his frown dark and thoughtful as he began trying to pull up the floorboards.

“I wouldn’t pull too many up, you don’t know who is likely to be down there,” Jasper teased if only to get his mind off the disquiet he felt about how Molly had been living.

Niall snorted but sto

od and began to stomp about the room.

Jasper stuck his head up the chimney and felt around for loose brickwork. All he got was a face full of soot.

“Do you think it has been stolen?”

Jasper looked at him. “From the sound of that argument, the woman who runs this damned dump is short of money. I doubt she would have any qualms about searching the rooms of her lodgers if she was short of a few bob.”

He realised then that he should have asked Molly where else she might have hidden the purse if it wasn’t where she had left it. He just hadn’t expected her accommodation to be this barren, though. Their search of it was over within a matter of a couple of minutes, and left the empty-handed men scratching their heads to think of a place where it might be hidden.

“We have to think like her,” Niall warned.

“I have never thought like a woman in my life,” Jasper retorted instantly. He folded his arms and lifted his brows. “Go on then.”

Niall grinned. “You know her better than I do.”

Jasper opened his mouth but then snapped it closed again because he knew Niall was right. He had spent a little more time with her, even in the few short hours they had known each other.

“She is pretty. I like her,” Niall added, throwing his colleague a rueful look. “At least you don’t have to worry about an angry father turning up claiming you are ruining his daughter’s reputation.”